Luminous English

Part of the problem is cognitive laziness. Some psychologists point out that we’re mental misers: we often prefer the ease of hanging on to old views over the difficulty of grappling with new ones. Yet there are also deeper forces behind our resistance to rethinking. Questioning ourselves makes the world more unpredictable. It requires us to admit that the facts may have changed, that what was once right may now be wrong. Reconsidering something we believe deeply can threaten our identities, making it feel as if we’re losing a part of ourselves.

Rethinking isn’t a struggle in every part of our lives. When it comes to our possessions, we update with fervor. We refresh our wardrobes when they go out of style and renovate our kitchens when they’re no longer in vogue. When it comes to our knowledge and opinions, though, we tend to stick to our guns. Psychologists call this seizing and freezing. We favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and we let our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We laugh at people who still use Windows 95, yet we still cling to opinions that we formed in 1995. We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.

At some point, you’ve probably heard that if you drop a frog in a pot of scalding hot water, it will immediately leap out. But if you drop the frog in lukewarm water and gradually raise the temperature, the frog will die. It lacks the ability to rethink the situation, and doesn’t realize the threat until it’s too late.

I did some research on this popular story recently and

discovered a wrinkle: it isn’t true.

Tossed into the scalding pot, the frog will get burned badly and

may or may not escape. The frog is actually better off in the slowboiling pot: it will leap out as soon as the water starts to get

uncomfortably warm.

It’s not the frogs who fail to reevaluate. It’s us. Once we hear the

story and accept it as true, we rarely bother to question it.

📚هایلایت قسمت 03 کتاب Think Again

(بخش سوم مقدمه)

✅ cognitive : شناختی

✅ laziness : تنبلی

✅ miser: خسیس

✅ grapple: دست به گریبان شدن

✅ resistance : مقاومت

✅ unpredictable : غیرقابل پیشبینی

✅ admit : قبول کردن

✅ reconsidering : تجدیدنظر کردن

✅ threaten: تهدید کردن

✅ identity: هویت

✅ struggle : سختی

✅ possession : مال

✅ fervor : اشتیاق

✅ refresh : نوسازی

✅ wardrobe : کمد لباس

✅ renovate: بازسازی کردن

✅ to be in vogue : مُد بودن

✅ knowledge : دانش

✅ opinion : نظر

✅ seizing and freezing : گرفتن و ثابت ماندن

✅ conviction : اعتقاد راسخ

✅ discomfort : ناراحتی، سختی

✅ doubt: شک

✅ brittle : شکننده

✅ instead of : بجای

✅ drop : افتادن

✅ scalding : جوشان

✅ leap out: بیرون پریدن

✅ lukewarm : ولرم

✅ gradually : کم کم

✅ wrinkle : پیچیدگی، نکته ظریف

✅ escape : فرار مردن

✅ reevaluate : دوباره ارزیابی کردن

✅ rarely : به ندرت

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